We are all guilty of forgetting to eat products in our fridges and cupboards before the use-by date. However, this food waste could amount to quite a large sum of money each year. Now households can add up exactly how much money they ‘throw in the bin’ every month, with the launch of a food waste calculator.

The virtual gadget, which has been launched by UK food tech company It’s Fresh!, does the sums after users reveal their household size, and input what fruit and vegetables they’ve wasted. It then reveals how much that will cost them in a year, as well as how much energy it will waste.

The calculator was launched to try and combat food waste, as British households throw away £13 billion (€14.7 bln) worth of food every year, according to the British Government.

Half of all food waste takes place in the home, it’s said, which costs UK households £700 a year. Twenty-five per cent of the world’s fresh water supply is used to grow food that is never eaten, according to the United Nations.

And at the current rate, an additional 2.3bn people will be on the planet by 2050 – which will require a 60-70 per cent increase in global food production.

En.brinkwire.com quoted It’s Fresh! founder Simon Lee as saying: “‘We hope that the calculator will bring this important issue to life for consumers, and help everyone better understand that when we waste food, we waste everything.”